Kyrie Eleison
by LondonBelow
Summary: Angel wants to meet Collins' parents... or she wants to know why she can't. Also the story of Roger and Collins' first meeting. AngelCollins, Roger
1. Prologue: Angel's Wants

Disclaimer: RENT is Jonathan Larson's. 

He wakes to the sounds of a hushed conversation in Spanish, her voice slurred like sunshine (maybe because he's half asleep). It's not Mimi. That's the first thing he thinks, _It's not Mimi_, because that means there's no damage control to be done. It's early. He'd love to keep sleeping, especially if Angel came back to bed, and that didn't happen when Mimi and Roger were fighting again. 

Damn Roger. Why was he still doing the attachment thing? You don't attach yourself to anything that shows you the slightest kindness. Every intelligent person knows that 

"Hey, baby." (Angel has returned) 

"Hey." She's bright and bubbly. _Definitely_ not Mimi. 

He shifts. It's no good. He's not going back to sleep—he has to get up. His mind screams at him. Postpone! Postpone! "How's your mom?" 

Angel smiles. Good guess! "She's fine. Hey, how come your parents never call you?" Normally she wouldn't even start asking—normally she had more tact. 

He sighs and gets out of bed. "I dunno, Ang." When he calls her that, she's not an angel. It's just a name her parents gave him. He doesn't know how much it hurts her. 

"Well, why don't you call them?" 

"Well..." He digs through a pile of clothes for his favorite shirt, sniffs it for cleanliness, then pulls it on. 

"Would you introduce me to them?" 

"Oh, Angel..." He puts his arms around her and kisses her neck. "I would if I could," he promises.

Angel smiles at the reassurance. She couldn't help but smile when she was in his arms. Then she asked, "Why can't you?" 

_to be continued!_

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	2. One: Voices on the Radio

Disclaimer: RENT is Jonathan Larson's

_Prologue_

November third was raining. The drops made noise against the roof, then slid and made noise against the dirt and made mud. It was dark outside with heavy clouds masking the moon, raining so thickly the streetlights disappeared. A car pulled to a slow stop and a small figure was helped out.

A few moments later the bedroom door opened, and the light trespassed.

Tom Collins, ten years old and very un-sleepy, knew it. The patch cheapened every darkness, including that he fixed his eyes upon in a physical likeness of sleep, while his mind raced to a wide variety of otherwheres. It lightened from black to gray, and he rolled onto his either side. He saw in the doorway a very tall nun. He squinted, but they all looked essentially the same in outline.

Did they sleep in those funky hats? How did they brush their hair? Or did they cut all their hair off, just for the convenience of it? That was such a… such a _nun_ thing to do. Tom tugged at a strand of his own hair. It was thick and curly and he still felt it was 'just growing back'. Until he could put his hair in his mouth (even just a bit), it was growing in. Tom tried to put his hair in his mouth. Even straightened it fell a good inch and a half short.

That concerned him less than the second figure now being pushed gently into the dormitory. He was rubbing his eyes with one hand and sniffling, while his free hand clutched a lumpy object – a stuffed animal. The nun kept one hand on his back, propelling him gently forward. He radiated noise as the snuffling of his cries stirred boys from their rest.

"Right here," the nun said softly, pausing at the bed beside Tom's. She pulled back the blanket.

Well, that at least was a mercy, Tom decided when he heard the nun's voice. At least the boy was shown in by Sister Mary Elisabeth. He pitied the boys introduced by Sister Agnes.

The boy climbed into his bed and the nun pulled the blanket over him. She tucked him into bed, singing a song very low. She didn't have a voice you'd hear on the radio, but when you're in a new place, and you're small and you know you got no power, it's nice to have someone be nice. Even without a voice you would hear on the radio..

"Sister?" Tom asked. He had waited for the song to end.

"Go back to sleep, Tom," the nun said softly, not turning away from the new boy.

"I can't, Sister. I wasn't asleep in the first place."

Sister Mary Elisabeth sighed. "Tom," she said, softly and quite permissively.

He didn't object. He remained awake, though. The new boy was still sniffling when Sister Mary Elisabeth left the room. Tom listened for a few minutes, then slipped out of bed. The cold hit him fast, but it was New York and it was winter, what of cold?

Tom padded over to the next bed and rested his hand on the blanket, somewhere above the crying boy.

_to be continued_

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	3. Two: Good Day, Sunshine

Disclaimer: RENT is Jonathan Larson's

Ten years in a Catholic institution had taught Tom to wake up early. He slipped out of bed quietly and hurried down the corridor between two rows of beds, past the sleeping figures of dozens of boys. He had heard complaints before that the dormitory was too loud. This meant nothing to Tom. He had never slept anywhere else to his memory, and was beginning to doubt that he ever would.

Tom brushed his teeth and peed. He'd made the mistake of waiting before, and then found himself in the queue. He finished up swiftly, too young to be interested in what makes older boys late, and hurried back to his bed. He sat, watching the new boy. After trying to soothe him the previous night, Tom considered himself at least partly responsible for the boy's well being. He waited.

The bell rang. Throughout the dormitory boys groaned and rose groggily. They kicked off sleep and blankets, shuffled or rushed or stumbled towards the bathroom, all but two of them. One, Tom Collins, sat on his bed, fully dressed and staring at the second boy, who had yet to poke his head out of his blanket cocoon.

When the boys began returning and getting dressed, Tom sighed. The other boy wasn't going to get up. Tom hopped off his bed and poked the other boy. He poked him again. When there was no response, Tom poked him once more, hard.

"Stop it!" the boy yelp. He sat up, throwing back his covers.

Tom took one look at the boy and swore. He was gorgeous: big, bright green eyes; curly blond hair; white skin. He couldn't've been more than five years old. Tom knew the boy wouldn't last. He was the very definition of desirable and wouldn't last more than a month.

"What the hell'd you poke me like that for, jerkoff?" the boy demanded. Tom amended his prediction. Maybe six weeks for a boy with that mouth.

"If you don't get up you'll miss breakfast. And they won't let you miss class, so you'll be sitting there thinking, 'wow, I wish I'd dragged my ass out of bed when Tom told me to and gone to breakfast, because now I'm really really hungry'."

The boy gave him a strange look, but he got out of bed. He was dressed in a worn pair of blue jeans and a red-and-pink baseball shirt that had a tear at the seam by his side. Both had seen better days. And then, the strangest thing: he got out of bed and stood. He didn't introduce himself. He didn't move.

"Um… I'm Tom."

"Hi."

When it became clear that he wouldn't say anything else, Tom reminded him, "Now you say your name."

The boy told him, "Roger."

"Hi, Roger."

Before Tom could say more, Sister Agnes came into the room. Tom grabbed Roger's hand and, ignoring his protests, pulled him into line. "Why are we lining up?" Roger asked.

A few years ago, Tom would've had no idea why they wouldn't line up. After talking to the other kids, he had a better sense of what was usual and what wasn't, at least for outside the children's home. "We just have to."

"Why?"

"Because otherwise we don't get breakfast."

"Why?"

"You ever dealt with an angry nun?"

"No."

"Then hush. That's Sister Agnes." As the line moved, Tom explained to Roger in a whisper, "She's a hellbitch."

Roger pressed his hand to his mouth and giggled.

_to be continued_

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	4. Three: Roger's Popularity

Disclaimer: RENT is Jonathan Larson's.

Roger stood over the sink, brushing his teeth. It was a perfect white porcelain sink, the kind of sink you didn't want to fall against. He could just imagine a rounded corner of that perfect porcelain sink making a big dent in the side of his head, making the world spin and whirl with sirens. Flecks of white foam spattered, the harder he brushed. He could just imagine being thrown against this sink. He could just imagine how much it would hurt.

Roger tilted his head. Down at the other end of the row of sinks, where the sinks were taller, Roger's friend Tom was brushing his teeth. At least, Roger thought he and Tom were friends. Tom said they weren't friends. Tom said Roger wasn't going to stay here for very long.

_Yes I am,_ Roger had corrected him. _Officer O'Bryan said I would. He said I'd like it here._

They had been sitting outside after lunchtime. Roger wasn't crazy about outside—it beat inside, he had to admit, though. Because it was raining, most of the other kids—and there were a lot, way more than he had ever seen before—stayed inside like the nuns told them to. Roger didn't like the other kids. They were noisy and shoved too much. So when Tom pushed open the door and stepped outside, Roger followed, despite what the nuns said.

The back was a giant mudpuddle ringed by a chainlink fence. And there Tom had given Roger some advice. _You don't really have to do your homework,_ he said, _but you should. What grade are you in? _

_I dunno. _

_Well… when you used to be in school,_ Tom had said.

Roger told him, _I_ _never went to school. _

_Never!? How old are you? Three? _

_I'm six and a half,_ Roger had replied angrily. When he told Tom what he was learning in class, though—namely how to read; Sister Mary Elisabeth had also given him a paper about multiplication since he knew how to add—Tom said if Roger skipped doing his homework even once, he was screwing himself over for the rest of his entire life. Roger had promised not to miss one god-damned day of homework.

_Oh, yeah. And don't swear—don't say god-damn,_ Tom had added. The rules in this place were getting tougher and tougher to follow.

Roger reflected on all of this as he stood at the sink brushing his teeth and thinking about how much it would hurt if he was smashed against it. There was a little puddle of toothpaste foam around the drain, and he was scratching almost dry bristles against his teeth. Roger took the brush out of his mouth, rinsed it and started to scrub the toothpaste taste out of his mouth.

"Hey."

Roger looked up. There were a few guys behind him. "Hi," he said. "I'm Roger."

"You came in last night, right?"

He nodded. "Cops brought me."

The guys laughed. "You broke the law or something?" one of them asked.

"No." Roger explained that the police had come to his house, and—

"Hello, Sister Agnes," Tom said loudly from the other side of the room. The boys looked and saw that Sister Agnes was not there, but that was warning enough. Most of the boys scattered, heading for their beds. Tom pulled Roger aside.

"Why'd you do that?" Roger demanded.

"Look, boy—" Tom was only a few years older than Roger, but he knew the ropes far better, and anyway four years is a long time to a ten-year-old, "—you don't want to tell them about your life at home, ok?"

"Why not?" Roger asked.

"Just don't," Tom told him. "Now c'mon, let's get to bed."

_to be continued!_

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	5. More Answers

Disclaimer: you all know it's Mr. Larson's

He leaves the story there; he stops, because he has to get to work and because the rest infringes on Roger's privacy. He isn't sure that he actually cares about Roger's privacy, nor is he sure that Roger cares about Roger's privacy. Roger walks around the loft naked. Maybe though the scars on his body make him seem rugged. Or maybe he just thinks they do.

After class, they have plans to meet their friends at the Life Café. She doesn't meet him there, though. She shows up at office hours instead.

Collins is in conversation with three of his students from the Ethics Bowl team. "But that's not right," says Ethan, a young Republican who gesticulates so wildly he makes the collars of his polo shirts jump. "Killing either one person or another—"

"No, you're killing either a person or an embryo," retorts Jena, liberal-verging-on-anarchist and Collins' particular favorite. Even though he never takes favorites, there are just the students he _doesn't hate_.

"Whatever you call it, it's the same thing!" rants Ethan.

"It! It! You don't call _people_ it, it is a name for things. Even _you_ agree. Republican," she tacks on.

"Legitimate," Collins allows, "but you won't get to nationals with the evils of Republicans. Counter-argument?" he prompts.

The third student adds her opinion. "Megan says the logical answer, given that one has to die," Jena interprets haltingly, "is that the mother was irresponsible in not knowing her health and she chose to get pregnant. She should die."

And that is when the knock comes and the door opens. The four occupants of the office turn and see a stunning young woman wearing a neon miniskirt and a denim jacket. After a moment Megan laughs. "Close your mouth, Ethan," Jena translates, "she's a man."

Collins stands. "Baby, is something wrong? Or are you only here to make my students jealous?"

"Hm. The jealousy thing," she decides, and pulls up a chair at his desk.

"Wanna join our Ethics Bowl team?" Jena asks. "We have to kill either a mother or child. Ethan wants to kill the mother. But you'd probably destroy a child by raising him with that on his conscience."

Collins checks his watches. He gives the students three more minutes to natter, then cuts them off. "Okay, I want you all to write two versions—one supporting either argument—for Friday. We'll go with the best. Let's not get our asses kicked by Santa Cruz this year," he adds in farewell, then he closes the door behind them and kisses Angel. "Ready to go?"

"Mhm."

She holds his hand and they nuzzle their way to the Life, where there nuzzling is interrupted by an all-too-familiar event:

"_Collins!_" And a splat of flesh and leather hits him. Roger is not having a good day. He puts his arms around Collins' neck and holds on tight until Collins pats his back and says, "Okay, pup," and Roger drops away. Mimi looks ready to murmur.

It isn't until they're walking home that Angel asks, "What happened to Roger?"

"What do you mean?" Collins asks.

"He's not your puppy," she observes. Not, from their behavior, that you would know. Collins pets Roger's head and teases him in a way he does no one else. At one point that day he had actually fed him – well, through bits of bread that Roger caught in his mouth. And he referred to Roger as "Puppy".

Collins sighs. "I told him not to tell the other boys. Any time a kid came in at night, with the cops, you knew something was going on." He slips an arm around her waist and pulls her closer. After that evening, she doesn't object. "And Roger wasn't cool. He told them because he thought they liked him. When the cops picked him up, he was in a dog cage."

"What?!" She must have heard that wrong.

Collins nods. Yup, a dog cage. "His mother was a whore. While she was working she kept him in a cage under a blanket. But she'd get high and just… leave him in there. Forget about him. So when he told the others boy, they would tease him, call him a son of a bitch or Whore's Dog. The worst thing is, he didn't know what a whore was until then."

"So 'Puppy' is…"

"He was cute, sweet… and totally devoted to me. I was trying to help."

Angel rests her head on his shoulder. It's not so bad anymore that her boyfriend loves someone else. He loves her like a lover and he loves him like a… maybe a brother. Maybe a child. She isn't sure. She doesn't need to know.

Angel sighs. She's happy.

She says so.

_to be continued!_

Reviews would be awesome. And yes, there is a National Championship for Ethics Bowl. And Santa Cruz did win. Go Slugs!


	6. Roger's Memories

Disclaimer: you all know it's Mr. Larson's

It's cold. I think I am five. Mommy baked me a cake for my birthday with a whole lot of frosting. But that was a long time ago, when Mommy used to go to work outside. She was really pretty, even when she went outside wearing jeans and old sweaters. She was really, really beautiful, the most beautiful woman in the whole world.

She talked about school, too, about how I was going to go to kindergarten soon and I would do really well and grow up to go to college, which she'd had to drop out of to have me. Back then Mom used to leave me with our neighbor, Mrs. Sacowski, but Mrs. Sacowski's son started private practice and put her in a nice home.

I'm not sure what that means but I sure miss her.

Anyway. Then Mommy started working from home. She would be funny and sleep late and get nosebleeds, and there would be flour on the table. I wasn't supposed to leave the closet when she worked but I got hungry or had to go to the bathroom.

Sometimes her boyfriends liked me. One even gave me candy. But mostly they didn't, and some of them even left. Mommy really didn't like that. And I liked when I fell asleep in the closet how she would pick me up and tuck me in on the couch and kiss me goodnight, but I couldn't stay in there for that long and it wasn't comfortable.

Then one of her boyfriends came up with that idea. Mommy was being funny. They had flour on the table and she sniffed it and kept rubbing her nose. I guess it smelled bad or something. Her boyfriend pointed me out, and Mommy got really mad.

"What's wrong with you! I told you to stay in the closet! I told you! Can't you do a single thing right!"

I started to cry. She grabbed me and shook me and yelled at me, my tiny body flopping and crying until I had an accident all over myself, too scared to hold it anymore. She let me fall down then. "You behave like a dog," she said.

And then the boyfriend suggested it.

I'm in my cage now, cold, hungry and needing the potty and not making a sound. Mommy's talking to another boyfriend. This one has a funny accent. I like his voice. At least I liked it when he came in, but he sounds angry now. His boots are awful heavy and he's tramping them through every room in the house. And we don't have a lot of rooms.

He comes into the kitchen. I'm in the kitchen, too, under the table, under a blanket. But if I move it just a little I could see him… it's a soft blanket. I like it a lot. It's blue and soft and I like to touch it. If I move it, I can see him. I pinch it and tug. It moves. I tug again and it just keeps moving but it won't fall off.

Then the blanket is yanked off, and suddenly the light pours over me. I blink at the dark figure who blocks light, blinked and try to see him and then he squats and I see his face. He has red hair, and he says, "Hey, little guy," in that funny voice so it sounds more like, "Hey, lit'le goi."

I move back. Who is he? Mommy's boyfriends never liked me this much…

"It's okay. I'm not goin' ta hurt'cha. D'you no' want t' c'mout a there?"

Slowly, I nod. Yes, I want to come out of here. I'm hungry and I need to use the bathroom. He unlocks the cage and I crawl out. The man shows me a shiny badge like I've seen on television. We used to have a TV when Mommy had her old job. He tells me to come with him.

"Where am I going?" I ask. "What about Mommy?"

I learn three things that night: the police officer's funny voice is called a brogue, keeping a boy locked in a dog cage is illegal, and everything has its cost.

I never see my mother again.

_to be continued!_

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	7. Tom's Memories

Disclaimer: you all know it's Mr. Larson's

I spent the better part of my young life in the home – St. Thomas's. I was named for it. They found me on the steps outside, brought me in and called me after the home. My surname, that comes from a tag they found attached with a safety pin to the blanket I was wrapped in by whoever left me there. The tag said "baby Collins", and out of respect or simply because they had no other ideas and felt I deserved a surname, they let me keep it.

I was put into foster care only once, when I was eleven. After nearly two weeks, the couple returned to the home and left me there, telling the nuns I "wasn't what they were looking for" in a child. Sister Mary Agnes was furious with me. They'd fostered dozens of children with the same family before. She was so angry she banned me from recess for two weeks. Instead I helped clean the classroom – clean the blackboard, clap erasers, that sort of thing. As far as punishments go, it was pleasant. I remember clapping the hell out of those erasers, the movement becoming rote as I stood, just thinking. Something else bothered me, though.

I knocked, and when Sister Mary Agnes invited me into her office—no doubt thinking I was one of the other nuns—I took a deep breath and went in, telling myself, _Remember, you are right. _I denied myself the right to tremble and walked into her office strengthened by the knowledge of my belonging.

She looked up from her work as I settled into the chair on the opposite side of her desk. "Thomas?"

"Don't lend me out again." That's what we called it when someone went into foster care – being "lent out".

"That is not your decis—"

I didn't let her finish. I knew a no when I heard one. This time, I said no. No, I won't accept this answer. I lifted my shirt and let her see the bruises I'd acquired in my time lent out. While she was still staring, shocked, I told her, very slowly, "Don't… lend me out again."

Sister Mary Agnes understood the threat. Lent out even once more, I would be quick to tell anyone – and I mean anyone, especially a newspaper – what had gone on in the first home. She sighed, but she nodded. It would do. Her nod was a promise that I would not be lent out again.

"Thank you, Sister." I stood up, thinking it best to get out of her way as soon as possible.

"Thomas." I stopped when she said it, silently swearing. I couldn't have run, but I wished I'd been out of there sooner. And now she was going to tell me off. Somehow that always hurt, even when I knew I'd done nothing very wrong. And I hadn't. But Sister Mary Agnes surprised me. She didn't scold me. She said, "I'm sorry, Thomas."

I left the home a few years later on a full scholarship. There are advantages to being a poor, black orphan. Those advantages are few and far between, but when you're applying for scholarships, it's great. Being exceedingly clever helps, too; I suspect I am a genius, though I have never been tested. Of course, this was the eighties, before being gay counted towards your affirmative action status. Still, I was "special" enough to merit scholarships through my undergraduate work.

I was fourteen years old. My childhood had ended -- then, if not long ago.

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	8. A Mother Knows

Disclaimer: you all know it's Mr. Larson's

The electronic beeping pervaded every inch of his body, hurting like hard blood, and for once in his life Tom Collins could not let his mind wander. He could not see the world through Kierkegaard's eyes, taking that leap of faith fully aware of the potential failures. He could not act as he though Blaise Pascal might act, combining the perfection of mathematics and reason with the clarity of thought and logic. Because the truth is, he wasn't Kierkegaard or Pascal. He was Tom Collins, or in this case, he was just Tom.

_This isn't right,_ is what he thought. It wasn't right for this to be the ending.

Since he told Angel the story of his youth, she had been getting ideas. "We should try to find them," she would say. After all, she reasoned, someone had dropped him off outside the children's home, obviously he had parents. They had probably lived in the neighborhood. They cared about him, tried to make sure he was looked after. They wanted to be found; they attached a name tag, didn't they?

Angel reasoned all of this, and Tom endured it. He loved her. He let her postulate and reason and suppose, and he did it knowing that faith is doubt and she asked too much of a faith he lacked.

It was night when Angel reasoned, lying in bed with his short-cropped hair and masculine body unprotected, and sure, Angel was in love, but he was frightened. He was so frightened. Long ago Angel had learned what he could do with some lipstick and blush a little bit of fabric. He become someone beautiful, fascinating, wise, and the moment that person emerged – hell, the moment he touched that long, shiny tube of lipstick – Angel felt that person inside him surge forward, bursting with desire to be free.

(Of course her mother knew long before her father. A mother knows these things.)

But then at night he wasn't that someone. At night he felt naked even when he wasn't, and he never found the words to express the comfort of a body beside his when he closed his eyes and felt that he was really and truly not alone. And at night he found that looking outward comforted him. If Mimi and Roger were fighting (when weren't there?) there was a conversation to have. Usually there was some political thing, or he could ask Collins to talk about one of his philosophers. Anything would do; his genitalia were irrelevant to matters looking outwards.

Lately, though, Angel had been talking about Collins, about his parents. She wanted to find them.

Finally, one night, Collins lost patience. "Okay," he said. "All right, Angel. I'll see what I can do about taking you to meet my parents."

Angel had a bad cold then and, knowing Collins was too honorable a man to make a promise and not keep it, he smiled, thanked him, and fell asleep. Three days later, here they were, at the hospital.

Angel stood back slightly. Tom touched the hand of the woman lying on the bed. He just couldn't stop thinking that this was wrong. It wasn't supposed to end like this, not for her. She wasn't supposed to waste away to something so frail and thin her veins bulged through rice paper skin.

Her eyes opened and focused, slowly, their icy blue not in the least bit taken from clarity with age, or sickness, or whatever had caused this. She frowned. Her brow wrinkled. And for a moment, he wondered… but then she said, "Thomas?"

Collins grinned. It felt wrong with all his sadness, but he smiled. "Hey, Sister." He sat down and held her hand. "How are you?"

"I've been better," she admitted. "How are you?"

"I'm…" _HIV positive_ "good. I'm good. I'm teaching now, at NYU, and, um… this is my girlfriend. Angel."

There was an awkward pause, and then the nun began to chuckle. "Oh, my," she said. She wasn't what he remembered -- the tough, forbidding Mother Superior. She was just a person, only that, as fragile and emotive as the next. "Forgive me – it's very nice to meet you – it's only – oh, Thomas. All those years ago. I always thought you were gay."

Angel smiled. _So it's true,_ she thought... a mother always knows.

_the end_


End file.
